This invention relates to compost windrow treating machinery and more particularly to self-propelled vehicles for traveling down the windrow and feeding the windrowed material to a blower which blows the material in a path to reform a windrow of the aerated material. The machine to be described is part of an organic waste material recycling system for treating windrowed waste material such as leaves, wood fragments, brush, paper, garbage and sludge, which have been windrowed to bacterially convert them to fertilizers and mulches.
The problems incident to the disposal of waste by communities and cities which have traditionally land-filled their waste is today exacerbated by a lack of available landfill sites in nearby geographic locations, with the result that composting is an option being utilized with increasing frequency. Typically, a wide variety of organic waste material is being chipped and ground to a size suitable for composting and then windrowed for bacterial decomposition. Systems of this type considerably reduce the waste volume and minimize landfill space requirements. They, further, produce natural organic fertilizers which are useful by farmers, golf course owners and others and, thus, offset the cost incurred by municipalities and companies in disposing of their huge volumes of waste. In order to decompose the organic waste material and convert them to fertilizer or a mulch that is relatively odorless, such composted materials must be aerated and turned on a regular basis, for instance, several times weekly. It is important to monitor the heat build-up in the pile and aerate the composted material when predetermined temperatures are reached. Such windrows of material may be a quarter of a mile long, and as much as up to fourteen feet in height, and up to eighteen feet in width. For a variety of reasons which will become apparent, the present invention is deemed a considerable improvement over known prior art machinery.